Psychologically speaking, the very act of going to prison(even if its minimum security)can be highly damaging. There is no telling what caused this guy to snap but its likely that he didn't sit there and stew about it and decide to do it on his own. It was likely a snap decision brought on by q pretty high amount of stress and depression.

Not justifying it, just stating that its not so cut and dry as a simple choice to kill your family.

There is no telling what caused this guy to snap but its likely that he didn't sit there and stew about it and decide to do it on his own.

If he was still alive and having to defend himself in court, he'd probably plead temporary insanity.

Insanity means without reason or utterly foolish. Something must have really snapped in his head, put him on another plane of consciousness.

That's all I can think of. I can't believe a father would really kill his innocent little child. I want to believe that he would not have done so in even a remotely reasonable state of mind. He must have really lost it.

This kind of murder-suicide is a relatively common experience (murder-suicides being highly uncommon events in the first place). Customarily, they are committed by Caucasian men. The shrinks and the profilers believe that this particular type of murder is an insidious relative of a "vanilla" suicide. The male figure feels shamed due to personal and professional failings and feels that he is unable to provide for his family. In a state of depression he determined to kill himself. However, the basis for the suicidal impulse is the fear of being unable to care for the family, a result guaranteed by the suicide. Therefore, the perpetrator, as "patriarch" decides to commit suicide for the entire family. That way, he can prevent them from dealing with the consequences of his failings and his suicide. These cases often appear in connection with financial failures.

Where as non-caucasian males would, customarily, just walk away with no guilt and no feelings of any responsibility?

Why would you say that? The GP is pointing out that when placed under similar levels of stress and feelings of guilt and inadequacy people in other cultures (surprise!) behave differently.

Sounds pretty racist, any way you want to try to advance that argument.

Why do people insist on labeling any perception or documentation of differences between races or cultures as "racist"? People are different, that's why we can make such distinctions as race in the first place! Furthermore, to posit that all races are equal/identical in all ways is ridiculous. For example, I'm a white guy and my girlfriend is African. I have to wear sunblock... she doesn't. Is that a racist comment?

This kind of automatic negative reaction to any mention of racial differences immediately eliminates legitimate discourse, because now the dialog shifts from communication to accusation and defense. That, actually, is often the point of crying "racism!", because it puts the other guy on the defensive, even if he happens to be right. Maybe especially if he happens to be right.

If the facts bear out what the GP is stating (i.e., that there are such differences) then his comment is not racist, but informative. And if he's wrong, then he's probably just misinformed. Personally, I saw nothing inflammatory or racist in his commentary. At least, I'll reserve judgment before making any accusations.

Japanese males, for example, tend to commit suicide in silence, alone. Well, traditionally they do: I read somewhere that that has been changing. Regardless, am I saying that suicidal Japanese men are a. inferior or b. superior to their Western counterparts? The answer is c. neither... I was making an observation.

You're confusing cultural differences, which are real, with racial differences, which are illusory. Yes, in the predominant "black" culture in the US, it is more socially acceptable for men who don't feel they can adequately provide for their families to abandon them; I believe statistics show there are proportionally more black single moms. That doesn't mean all people with dark skin buy into this cultural norm. A large number of caucasian men also abandon their families -- there is just more of a stigma attached to it in their culture. Also, the genes for African external physical characteristics are dominant genes, so saying the behavior of "blacks" in America is caused by their race, when many of them are in fact of predominantly European, not African decent, is just bad science.
I'm a redneck married to an African woman from Sierra Leone. Cultural, Africans are different from American blacks. American blacks assume I am biased against them and shy away from socializing with me until after they get to know me. Africans have been dealing with diversity for so long that it is second nature for them; they make no assumptions about me and welcome me with open arms. Of course, the Africans immigrants I deal with are some of the best and brightest people from Sierra Leone and Nigeria who had the motivation and means to emigrate to the US. They are not necessarily representative of the average person from their countries.
Does acknowledging cultural differences I've observed with my own eyes make me a racist?

I was about to say that. If there is money in it and the chance to get caught reasonably small, some company will certainly do it. Hell, if murder was legal you'd have murder agencies pop up left and right, if the money is right.

If it is profitable and either legal altogether or at least the chance to get caught is small enough (or the fines well within the profit margin), a company will do it. The formula for profit is income minus expenses, morals doesn't exist in that equation.

And while every person may have moral concerns, they don't apply as soon as a company can absorb that moral problem. A worker there could have moral qualms because he does something he knows is "wrong", but he has to do it, he has to bring home money to feed his kids. A manager who lays off a worker he knows can't get a new job and thus is threatened with poverty might have moral concerns over it, but he can brush that aside and see that this way he can continue employing those other 10, and if he didn't lay off the one, the company might lose profit and cut the whole branch, making 12 people (i.e. the 11 and him) lose their jobs. The top management might even have moral concerns, but they can shift the blame on the investors who want first and foremost money for their investment, and the managers are responsible that this money is well invested money. The investors in turn don't even know what they invest in, they just hand money to their bank, trusting the bank to multiply that money. And the investors working at a bank might even know that a company is doing "evil things", but they have to put their moral concerns aside, they have promised their customers to do the best investments they could so they have to invest in the "evil" company, because it's the most profitable one.

You see, nobody to blame, no moral problem for anyone. Everyone can shift the blame on someone and morals don't play a role anymore, even if they did for a single person, the moment you can shift it on someone else, it's all fine, after all, you don't do evil, you're forced to, by the circumstances.

Yeah, keep in mind that IBM in Germany built the machines for managing the concentration camps, wrote the software, printed the punch cards, and even sent people on site to do service. The service contract payments went to IBM in New York, not to IBM Germany. Now, you can argue all day whether that means the IBM of today should be held responsible for that, or for that matter if the Krups of today should be held responsible for making gas chambers, but either way you just have to remember not to expect morality from a corporation.

Sociopathy is not a disease like flu with a cause and exact symptoms; it is a disease of the psyche, which itself is a virtual reality in that we do not interface with the world except through the psyche as medium. As Bruno Bettelheim said, "personality is perception".

If a person believes it is OK to do anything for money -- that money, itself, is the entire meaning of life, and if that person marries another who feels the same then they might delay having children until their futures could be secured. And if that security was taken away then that sick individual, always working rationally from a mistaken perception (that money is all) might feel it was his responsibility to relieve them of a future filled with poverty.

It is not fun getting into the mind of sociopaths/psychopaths, so I'm just saying....

He is self-centered (or rather, more self-centered than the average Joe) because of what? Because he sent out spam emails and didn't care that he got on your nerves? By that logic, every cold calling CCA is also a self centered bastard who's ready to pop any second.

And yes, they're annoying as hell (maybe more than even spammers), but that doesn't make them more likely to go on killing sprees than the average Joe.

I fail to see the connection between being a spammer and being a murder-suicide in the making. Basically, we're all self-centered. Do I care about your wellbeing? Not really. Do you care about mine? I doubt it. Does that mean we will leap at each other's throat the moment we spot each other? Dunno about you, but I won't. Usually, people don't care too much about people they don't know.

I think your base assumption is flawed. If this was true then the Red Cross wouldn't exist, neither would other charitable organizations that receive money from everyday people and disperse it to others in need. If people didn't care too much then they wouldn't give too much. But the fact of the matter is that the people of this world care very much about the well being of others. I'm sorry that you don't, but I think I'm speaking for the majority of people when I say that I do.

If you were to check who are the ones donating most, you'd see that it's often (not in all cases, no) people who have suffered / had relative suffer of what they are giving for.

We had a cancer case in my wife family, and suddently everyone started talking about having given money to help fight cancer, someone at the PHD level changed direction to go fight it, and all.

So, having seen that, and heard that before, I believe many people basic reason to give isn't that they are simply thinking about the well-being of the whole planet, but more about helping on something you are aware of. In the case of blood giving, it's either that, or they are Homers wanting donuts =)

I think your base assumption is flawed. If this was true then the Red Cross wouldn't exist, neither would other charitable organizations that receive money from everyday people and disperse it to others in need. If people didn't care too much then they wouldn't give too much. But the fact of the matter is that the people of this world care very much about the well being of others. I'm sorry that you don't, but I think I'm speaking for the majority of people when I say that I do.

If people usually cared about people they don't know, there would be no need for the Red Cross and other charitable organizations to exist in the first place.

Basically, we're all self-centered. Do I care about your wellbeing? Not really. Do you care about mine? I doubt it. Does that mean we will leap at each other's throat the moment we spot each other? Dunno about you, but I won't. Usually, people don't care too much about people they don't know.

Swift one there, Ayn! I guess that those firemen walk into your burning house to pull you away from a horrible death for the pay. Likewise the physicians, therapists and the other adherents to the social compact.

Public interest lawsuits, seat belts, vaccines - yep, you have hit the nail on the head: everybody is exactly like you.

Swift one there, Ayn! I guess that those firemen walk into your burning house to pull you away from a horrible death for the pay. Likewise the physicians, therapists and the other adherents to the social compact.
Public interest lawsuits, seat belts, vaccines - yep, you have hit the nail on the head: everybody is exactly like you.

There is a difference between caring about 'people' and caring about 'an unknown person'. Firemen, physicians, etc, clearly care about people a great deal. Those who donate to the Red Cross are trying to help people. However, if you take a fireman aside and tell him "Jim Bob in Kentucky has died", the odds of him shedding a tear are very low. Similarly, if you told me that a woman in Florida read my post and thinks I'm mentally ill, would I care? Hardly.

People often care about people. People often care about humanity. But do people often care about every actual instance of 'some person they don't know' ? Not hardly.

I lived two blocks away from her - 800 West End Avenue - in the 1960's - and I had more than a few discussions with her about her "Objectivist" views.

Fascinating thing, her royalty revenues had ceased - those were 26-year copyright terms prior to the 1976 amendments - and she was quite happy with her Social Security check and her rent-controlled apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Her public pronouncements were not the life that she lived. Objectivists are self defeating and John Galt is a character lifted from French post-modernist literature - pure infringement.

She also benefitted from free medical care - treating her lung cancer. Amazing that she accepted that which she would have denied others....a hypocrite of the first order.

He is self-centered (or rather, more self-centered than the average Joe) because of what? Because he sent out spam emails and didn't care that he got on your nerves? By that logic, every cold calling CCA is also a self centered bastard who's ready to pop any second.

Jesus, let's have a little reading comprehension here, can we? That's not his logic at all. His logic is that the more a self-centered bastard someone is, the more likely they are to commit a few murders before committing suicide, IF they reach the point of suicide.

I've worked in telemarketing. About half of them are just regular schmoes, but the other half, well, let's just say that if they were suicidal, you wouldn't expect them to stick a gun in their mouth at home, they'd more likely bring it in to work first and "share".

I've worked in telemarketing. About half of them are just regular schmoes, but the other half, well, let's just say that if they were suicidal, you wouldn't expect them to stick a gun in their mouth at home, they'd more likely bring it in to work first and "share".

You were happy when I brought in donuts for everybody. Now I bring in bullets to share and you're upset? Geeze, people are so flighty and fickle, such hypocrites, sometimes it just makes me want to snap!

That's not fair. There are many criminals, who are also fathers, who love and don't harm their children.

Indeed. I admit to being a criminal. I've stopped cracking accounts illegally, I've stopped buying/smoking weed, I no longer brew up explosives/build bombs, etc - I'm a married/employed father now and am no longer willing to accept the risk associated with those juvenile habits. But, I still drive ~10% over the speed limit most times. Most people speed - Cops maybe even worse than the rest of us. I've even been known to jaywalk. Most of us are criminals in one way or another.

But that does not imply that I'm remotely violent with my children. It would take an inconceivable brain fracture for me to ever become an intentional threat to my family. As a matter of fact, the only scenarios where I could envision myself becoming violent would be in defense of them, myself, or another innocent - In that order.

This wasn't a normal father. He was a criminal.I agree this guy was a complete selfish asshole, but you're treading on dangerous ground here. There aren't two different types of people: "criminals" and "non-criminals". Someone being a criminal doesn't make them morally corrupt and somehow more able to commit murder/suicide.

With the ways the laws are lately, we're pretty much all criminals. That doesn't make us any more or less likely to do something insane like this.

What this guy did was a not uncommon response to his type of situation. There are psychological factors at work that we should work to understand instead of dismissing this as just the actions of a criminal and sweeping them under the rug. That doesn't help anyone.

It's similar to our reaction to the Columbine shootings. When someone does something that far off from our own moral compass we label them as the Other. They were "monsters" and that's how they did what they did. Well no, sorry, they were human beings. Identifying them as monsters doesn't do anything constructive to prevent similar tragedies in future.

I agree this guy was a complete selfish asshole, but you're treading on dangerous ground here. There aren't two different types of people: "criminals" and "non-criminals". Someone being a criminal doesn't make them morally corrupt and somehow more able to commit murder/suicide.

Have you read Confessions of a Former Spammer [infoworld.com]? These assholes do things like scrape emails from support websites for recovering gambling addicts and then send them invitations to online gambling sites. This is more than just fraud or theft. They prey on the weak and vulnerable for their own profit. And they do it in the most cowardly way possible, where they never even have to meet or see their victims.

You're correct in that these types of generalizations aren't really productive, but I think it's a rather safe assumption that anyone who has made millions off of spam aren't just a thief but truly a sociopath [answers.com]. They know that they're ruining the lives of others; they just don't care.

It's so easy to criticize behind computer screen. No one knows what he's been through. Nothing justifies the killing of his wife (maybe she agreed?) and daughter (this one has no maybes), but we just don't know what really happened, and never will. So I prefer not to judge.

Blond comes home, finds her husband in bed with another woman. She bursts into tears, pulls a gun from the bureau, and points it at her head. The husband shouts, "No, don't shoot!" The blond replies "Shut up! You're next!"

Once upon a time, I was put into a "mental health facility" (loony bin) after a drawn out period where I started seeing spiders coming at me in all directions (an extreme phobia of mine). Today, we have found out that this condition only emerges when I don't sleep at least 6 hours a night, and stress contriubutes largely to my ability to sleep. Well, about a day into this place, I was literally going nuts. They had TVs, but you weren't allowed to watch them... ever. The only game they had was a deck of cards... with 35 cards. They took away your shoes and most common clothing, where most of us had to wear a hospital gown... the place was at a constant 60 degrees F. There was one hallway... 84 steps from end to end. The only thing to do there was drink coffee and smoke. I never did either before I went there, but when the coffee cart came out, you grabbed one. There was nothing else to do. When smoke break came along, you smoked one. There was nothing else to do.

I started coming up with games to play with myself around the place to try and keep what sanity I had left. I got locked into solitary for playing "Die Hard" and being too "loud and obnoxious, which stirs up the other patients" I was told. The first visitation from my wife I was allowed to have, I had her get a lawyer and get me the hell out of there.

They look at you for a sec and scribble. Look right back at them, note the lack of eye contact, and write that down. Watch them again and repeat.

You'd be amazed how weirded out they get when they notice someone observing THEM... and the fact that it's while they're charting just makes it more delicious!

Other fun activities:

Invent an imaginary friend, but ONLY react to it in the presence of ONE staff member. They'll get weird looks when they talk about your imaginary friend, as no one else has seen it but them, and YOU don't have ANY idea what they're talking about...

At night, on a sleepless wing, do the "chicken". This requires enlisting some help. Start clucking from the room nearest the staff's station. When you hear them draw near, stop. The next room will take the cue and start clucking. They'll go bananas trying to figure out who to bust.

I was not self-admitted, else I could have signed an AMA (Against Medical Advice) waiver and gotten out. I had been working 16+ hour days at work for a month and I was cracking hard. I was actually doing a paid research study for people with psychosis, and I was doing a test in an MRI machine. The spiders started coming out of every crack and I couldn't move, obviously. I couldn't help but panic and I trashed and screamed, everything I could do to get out of there away from the spiders/ They had me admitted because I was "a probable danger to myself and others".

I also have to add this little bit, because it is hard for people to comprehend situations like this if they never have experienced it... When you have a psychotic episode, you can not tell it isn't real. You can even try and reason with yourself that "This can't possibly be happening", but ultimately, every other part of your brain is telling you it is.

I had a friend who was committed a few times because she would hurt herself. We would go to visit her, and each time I couldn't help but think that, if I got stuck in such a place, whatever my mental state was on the way in, I'd be insane on the way out.

It's not anything like a normal environment. Adults get treated like misbehaving and retarded children. Inmates fight over the stupidest things, probably out of boredom... What TV show was on could lead to actual violence. While I don't doubt that being in a place like that encourages people to leave as soon as possible, I don't see how it can possibly help someone with a real problem.

It takes someone with a minor god complex. "I'm the only thing that matters to my family, so they're better off dead." I know some people here will celebrate the spammers death, but I would have rather seen him in a 8x10 cell.

I think the whole killing of his wife is a bit over the top and goes to show how he truly was a monster with no morals. He could have just killed himself and done us all a favor. Now he's hated even more, which is going some.

Personally, I think the whole thing stinks. Who goes to all the trouble to escape jail so they can kill themselves when they succeed? It's not like there isn't a long list of people with motive to kill him and tidy up the witnesses. If the teenage girl was shot but escaped and is coherent enough to talk, why do the authorities talk about the "apparent" gunman? That seems to me the sort of language you use when all you have is circumstantial evidence.

Well, "Flying Spaghetti Monster damn it!" doesn't really roll off the tongue that well, plus he's not as much into fire and damnation. So, you know, it would end up a bit on par with, "Dear Enemy, I curse you and hope something slightly unpleasant happens to you. Like an onion falling on your head."

And the Invisible Pink Unicorn is too cute to be taken seriously when it comes to damning, so that one's out of the question too.

Tooth fairy? I suppose she could get scary if you speak with your head under your pillow, but a damnation that depends on that is kinda unreliable.

Santa Claus? What's he going to do if he damns you? Bring you a lump of coal? With the prices of energy lately, being damned by Santa might actually be a blessing these days, if you know what I mean.

So, you know, as non-existent personifications go, the Christian god wins hands down. Now _that_ guy can damn properly. It still doesn't mean we _believe_ in him, but he's the right non-existent guy for the job.

Most humans have a natural desire for justice and fairness. This is evolutionarily advantageous, it helps us build functional societies. Punishment is a tool. It is never 'right,' or 'good' to punish, those are moral judgments. Sometimes, it is effective, that is all we need say about it.

This was no more right or wrong than a rat eating its babies, or a lion killing an antelope. Shit happens. We punish transgressions like this not because the act is wrong or bad, but because it is ineffective, it doesn't work for society, and we are programmed to uphold what is right.

All punishment starts from within. It usually starts from a moral judgment or a feeling that something is not right with the universe. But right and wrong don't exist outside the minds of sentient beings.

You know the saying, "Judge not, lest ye be judged?" One will not make moral judgments against another unless one thinks that making moral judgments is a good thing. If you think it is a good thing, you will do it to yourself.

There is no place you can hide from your own judgment. People who make moral judgments are trapped in their own skulls with a monster they can't hide from or defend against. They use their own power against themselves.

This man has no capacity to damage society anymore. There are therefore only two possible reasons to hope for a Hell for him to suffer in. One obviously faulty reason is the hope that his suffering will restore some kind of balance to the universe. But his actions never had the power to put the universe out of moral balance. Nothing does.

The other reason is the hope that his suffering in hell will somehow deter others. Which might be true if there were any kind of proof it was happening, but there isn't.

Wanting to punish this dead man only reinforces the desire to punish in general. It tells the part of our brain that makes judgments and metes out punishment that it is doing the right thing. And some day, all that righteous anger, pain, and humiliation will be directed internally, at the person making the judgment, as soon as they fail to live up to their own internal rulebook.

Don't get me wrong, discernment is a good thing. Knowing what works and what doesn't, and why, is a good thing. And fortunately, doing 'good' does not require moral judgment, only discernment and self interest.

Perhaps the worst thing about moral judgment is that it gets in the way of true discernment. If one thinks that certain things are inherently evil and need to be punished, one will have a hard time honestly recognizing when one is doing those things. I said there was no defense against the monster in our heads, that is not quite true. One can lie to oneself.

But if one refrains from judgment, both internal and external, one can really, honestly look at one's actions, decide which are effective and which ineffective, and reward the effective actions. Reward is the only motivator for new behaviors.

Wow, long rant. And I will admit, forgiveness is hard. It is much easier to give in to the feelings of anger and moral righteousness. I still do much of the time. But I don't judge myself for judging myself.:)

So don't judge this guy. Realize his actions were part of a larger pattern, that they weren't effective, that they did not bring him what he wanted, that they are detrimental to society, and that those sorts of actions should be punished only to help society function better, not because they were evil. He is now beyond the ability to harm society, and beyond our ability to witness his punishment, so all practical reasons to wish for punishment are gone.

What is left is only the mind's desire to judge everything in the universe, and harm that which is judged evil. Acting on that desire is harmful to the self.

That wasn't the point. Studies have *shown* that the prison environment is actually *more* destructive to the rehabilitation of criminals. Rather than focus on incapacitation, we should be focusing on rehabilitation, which, dollar for dollar, has a *much* higher rate of return than prison. I'm not saying we should keep murderers out of prison, but unarmed robbery? Please, just help the people actually survive, or, if they do it for the 'thrill' help them with that. It works something like 30% better than prison.

That's right - the US penal system killed that little girl and her mother.

Asshole.

You can throw all the pejoratives you want, the fact remains that the US penal system does an excellent job of making petty criminals into hardened criminals. Never mind issues like prison rape. This guy may have been serving in a minimum security facility but he US penal contains a number of penal facilities that are such hell-holes that being sent there could be construed as cruel and unusual punishment.

The guy was in a minimum security farm prison, if you ask me it had a lot more to do with social rehab than vengeance. The guy wasn't going to be able to access an uncontrolled computer in the two years he was there, if they wanted vengeance they may have sent him to a maximum security prison for longer than two years.

Have you ever been in the "farm system" (as you so daintily put it)? Let me tell you what life is like behind the bars at the "farm system":

Dorm living with fully grown men. These "dorms" are sometimes the size of a gymnasium. A gymnasium full of grown men. Fully grown, under enormous stress, living in close quarters. Honestly, you'd have much less stress living in a car.

2 minute showers, enforced.

Scheduled bathroom times. Gotta shit? Hold it until shit time, which is usually at the start of the day and the end.

Forced labor. They don't even bother matching you up with work from your skillset. Too fat? Go work in the yard. Too stupid to know how to kill someone with a knife? Kitchen work.

This "farm system" isn't about rehabilitation, it's about "serving your time" and getting the fuck out.

That's not rehabilitation, it's life structure enforcement. Rehab means breaking a person down into their individual pieces, examining all of those pieces, finding out what's wrong, and then learning to live life with the knowledge that you have a problem.

Or maybe that's why it's called punishment - it's not supposed to be pleasant. I won't defend the deplorable conditions in PMITA federal prisons or deny that they're just making bad people worse or deny that they make no significant effort to reintegrate prisoner with law-abiding society. But you haven't convinced me that there's anything deplorable going on in the "farm system." Most of your description sounds like boot camp in the military

That's not rehabilitation, it's life structure enforcement. Rehab means breaking a person down into their individual pieces, examining all of those pieces, finding out what's wrong, and then learning to live life with the knowledge that you have a problem.

Oh, so we should have just turned him over to the Scientologists?

The "problem" that a lot of these people have is simply that they are criminals and they will happily break the law if they think they can get away with it, not that they have some psychological problem that will be cured by counseling or psychotherapy. And fear of consequences is more of a deterrent than realizing you didn't get enough attention from mommy. I would be interested to see some statistics on repeat offenses for white collar criminals who spend time in Club Fed, as opposed to those who spend time in PMITA federal prison.

Well, there may be more than you wrote there, I wouldn't know, never been to jail. But what you do write, is no worse than army life anywhere in the world. And some even use conscription to inflict it on almost every male. Not that I defend conscription or anything, but it's not living hell either.

Dorm living with fully grown men. These "dorms" are sometimes the size of a gymnasium. A gymnasium full of grown men. Fully grown, under enormous stress, living in close quarters. Honestly, you'd have much less stress living in a car.

A lot of barracks out there pack a lot of grown men in a large confined space. Maybe not gym sized, but nevertheless. And they're under stress. Tough shit, learn to cope.

Frankly, I'm not exactly an extrovert myself, but I really don't get the "OMG, it's a big place with lots of men" mentality. So was the army, so is the office, etc. Most of human history happened that way. Whether you'd be packed with a lot of agricultural workers in little more than a big barn, or packed in a small house together with your extended family, or as a soldier in a longship/tent/barrack with at _least_ 8 or 10 members of your squad/decuria/watchamacallit. Go back to prehistory, and you'd be sleep with a lot of men, women and children in the confined space of a cave. It may seem like the end of the world if you spend your life in a basement trying to avoid contact with other humans, but it's not. Most humans are actually made to be social people. Being in a crowd won't kill you.

2 minute showers, enforced.

Well, the navy manages to live on even more inconvenient showers, to conserve water. It's giving up a bit of comfort, no doubt, but it's not the end of the world.

Scheduled bathroom times. Gotta shit? Hold it until shit time, which is usually at the start of the day and the end.

Ever pulled guard duty in the army? You're supposed to stand there and not desert your post until your time is up. This also means you can't go to the bathroom whenever you wish.

Forced labor. They don't even bother matching you up with work from your skillset. Too fat? Go work in the yard. Too stupid to know how to kill someone with a knife? Kitchen work.

Well, tough shit, sherlock. Noone asked me if my aspirations or skill set were perfectly matched to running with an assault rifle up hill, or operating a big loud AA gun. Nor if, say, cleaning the floor is against my religion.

Plus, that's the story of most people's lives even outside prison. You're rarely in a position to get your ideal dream job, or most people's work day would consist of getting blowjobs and surfing for porn. Instead most people get what's available. The guy behind the counter at the gas station or the one frying your burgers at McDonalds also aren't really paired to the best match for their aspirations and skills.

And again, if you look at human history, it used to be even worse.

Basically, I don't know. If you'd be telling me that there's something inherently humiliating or inhuman about the work they're asked to do, ok, I might even show some sympathy. But, basically, OMG, they're like Army Lite, with actually less stress and effort than the real Army... heh... dunno, fails to move me much.

Thank god, somebody actually gets it. I sit here in Europe gritting my teeth at all the Americans flooding the web chatting cold-bloodedly about killing criminals or locking them away for life, with no apparent conception of the idea that people can be reformed or that punishment ought to be appropriate rather than exemplary if you want people to respect the law.

The same comment applies to boys: try not to marry one. Especially you young, unsuspecting geeks out there. She is very charming, but don't ignore the red flags. Just see my.sig to know where it could lead you.:)

Good riddance to him. But how sad for his family. Why do assholes like this feel the need to take others along with them when they decide to check out? It's times like this when I'm sorry to be an atheist -- I want to believe that he's burning in Hell. Mere nonexistence is not a sufficient punishment for him.

"Davidson, 35, was sentenced in April to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $714,139 in restitution to the IRS after pleading guilty to falsifying header information to send spam e-mail, tax evasion and criminal forfeiture."

So, all it took for this guy to snap was 21 months and a shitload of debt? He must've known the consequences if he was ever caught. If you ask me, he killed in the wrong order.

I really wouldn't expect this kind of action out of a guy who built his entire living on annoying the public and ripping off the unwitting...

[/sarcasm]

The fact is that this guy was a half a step above a common thief. He probably had a serious feeling of entitlement and couldn't bear the fact that he had lost it all and would be forced to seek a legitimate job after his stay in the pen.

I feel bad for his family but he got what was coming to him. He was probably no different than most street thugs and we see this kind of violence in that community every day.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I would be willing to take a lifetime of spam to spare the life of his wife and daughter. The positive news of the story (the spam king is gone for good) pales in the shadow of this tragedy.

It should also be a lesson to all you married folks out there that feel you should help your spouse break jail... even you aren't clear of the line of fire. I am sure you can apply this metaphor to friend-of-the-quiet-guy-at-the-post-office and such, but this is so screwed up, my reality detector is going nuts.

Suicide is the ultimate statement of self-empowerment and control. We now know for sure, this man was unconcerned about disrupting countless lives, and now even destroying them; for his own sense of peace, prosperity, and control. What he feared most was being out of control of his own life, and didn't care about the lives of others. A person unconcerned about disrupting millions of lives for five seconds at a time, could not be bothered to have his interrupted for a few months. Poetic in a monstrous pig way.

Initially, I was considering "taking back" my previous suggestions that a death penalty be imposed for hardcore spammers. I had gone into great detail about my reasoning behind the notion, but it could easily be summed up by a conclusion that people who go through the extreme measures that spammer go through to circumvent various security measures, hack on private users' PCs to create botnets, and have generally caused the vast majority of the crap that endangers the systems and services around the planet (some of which are 'critical' and/or sensitive in nature) are nothing short of antisocial psychopaths and should be considered dangerous. People have commented that my conclusions are extreme, but I have to disagree. You have to consider what it takes (or what has to be missing) for a person to work so hard to cause so much damage and care so little about it. It's nothing the average 'business man on the street' would be capable of doing even if he were skilled enough to pull it off. It is the characteristics that enable the behavior of a spammer that mark him as an antisocial psychopath.

But as I was saying, I was considering retracting my previous suggestions because now that I see in the news a story of an actual dead spammer, I feel a bit sickened. And not sickened by the additional death and injury exclusively, but by the situation as a whole, leaving me uncertain that I would want spammers put to death. Truthfully, I'm still not sure, and am more certain that it was simply anger and frustration over the whole problem of spam to begin with. But one thing I am more certain about than ever before:

Spammers are DANGEROUS people.

The characteristics that indicate they have no moral boundaries to commit crimes, elude and evade security measures, hack into private computer systems and create networks of compromised computer systems used to create hell on a global scale, are the same characteristics of mass murderers. Before you disagree with me on this point, break it down for yourself. If you see major differences between the mentalities of the two (spammers and mass murderers) please detail them here. I'm not afraid of being wrong. I just don't think I am in this case.

Where the hell is all the Tinfoil-hat suspicion I usually see around here?

The guy more then likely had money stashed. He more then likely went to others for help once he escaped. Doesn't anyone think its possible that he was killed for this money by someone even sleazier then himself?

Nobody questions that there is an unrelated teenage FEMALE and a BABY involved? WTF?

C'mon/.

Escape, THEN kill yourself and family? Why not just fucking bedsheet yourself at the first "lights-out"?

This sounds HIGHLY suspect to me. Cheeeerist! I can think of dozens of scenarios that would explain this just as well as the scenario posited by the "authorities". And none of them as cheery as a murder/suicide.

You are celebrating because a man killed his family? You need some serious help.

If they'd put him in a medium or max security prison where he couldn't have escaped this would never have happened. He also didn't deserve death for what he did; the jail time and fines/restitution was plenty.

I know he did, but what I meant was even his death isn't something to be celebrated. The man was obviously deeply disturbed. Implying that someone like him should die (and that implication has been made many times here on/.) is just whacked.

WTF is this? There is a dead woman and child and you pop off at the mouth calling them things like "crotch fruit?" After seeing such comments the only conclusion I can extract is that I hope you never breed, we need less people on this earth that act like you just did.

Mod me down if you like, but DEATH to all spammers. I'm glad he took his crotch-fruit with him, so they won't grow up to spam like daddy.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but you weren't the victim in this story. I know, I know, it's very hard to consider other people but there is a 3 year old girl dead, a middle aged woman dead and an injured teen. All of them (to our knowledge) completely innocent.

They most likely have other family members and friends, I think you should consider these people to be the victims in this story, not you. Our thoughts and condolences should go out to them, not some nepotistic sentiment that they woul